In clusterware applications such as HACMP (High Availability Cluster Management Program), there exists many client applications which are intelligent enough to automatically reconnect to a backup server when the primary server fails. This is made possible by dynamically moving the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the primary server, with which a client was interacting, to the backup server. Accordingly, client applications do not have to be killed and/or restarted in response to a server failure. This capability of clusterware is referred to herein as “fallover.” However, the problem is that, as soon as the primary server fails, the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) connection existing between the client and the server takes some time to get terminated. This is primarily because client applications are unaware of the server failure and so the client application keeps retransmitting until the TCP retransmit counter expires, thus eventually terminating the TCP connection. Accordingly, it is seen that it takes a considerable amount of time for client applications to recognize the server failure event before attempting a reconnect to backup server.
From the above, it is therefore seen that there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described herein and above.